Scientists to showcase new technology standard that could shape the future of electronics design

Researchers from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton have discovered a way of enhancing the capabilities of an emerging nanotechnology that could open the door to a new generation of electronics.

Scientists to showcase new technology standard that could shape the future of electronics design

In a study published in the Nature group journals, Scientific Reports (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17785-1), researchers show how they have pushed the memristor – a simpler and smaller alternative to the transistor, with the capability of altering its resistance and storing multiple memory states – to a new level of performance after experimenting with its component materials.

Traditionally, the processing of data in electronics has relied on integrated circuits (chips) featuring vast numbers of transistors – microscopic switches that control the flow of electrical current by turning it on or off.

Transistors have got smaller and smaller to meet the increasing demands of technology, but are now reaching their physical limit, with – for example – the processing chips that power smartphones containing an average of five billion transistors.

Memristors could hold the key to a new era in electronics, being both smaller and simpler in form than transistors, low-energy, and with the ability to retain data by ‘remembering’ the amount of charge that has passed through them – potentially resulting in computers that switch on and off instantly and never forget.

The University of Southampton team has demonstrated a new memristor technology that can store up to 128 discernible memory states per switch, almost four times more than previously reported.

In the study, they describe how they reached this level of performance by evaluating several configurations of functional oxide materials – the core component that gives the memristor its ability to alter its resistance.

Themis Prodromakis Professor of Nanotechnology and EPSRC Fellow at the University of Southampton, said: “This is a really exciting discovery, with potentially enormous implications for modern electronics. By 2020 there are expected to be more than 200 billion interconnected devices within the Internet of Things framework – these will generate an incredible amount of data that will need processing.

“Memristors are a key enabling technology for next-generation chips, which need to be highly reconfigurable yet affordable, scalable and energy-efficient.

“We are thrilled to be working with world-leading industry, bringing innovations into new electronic systems that require bespoke customisation. Such examples include systems that are employed in inaccessible environments; for example, inside the human body, space or other remote or harsh locations.

“At the same time this technology is ideal for developing novel hardware that can learn and adapt autonomously, much like the human brain.”

The research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Royal Society.

Professor Prodromakis thanks "the training partnership (TTP), education in action" for the opportunity to talk about brain-inspired electronics to 900 students! The talk touched on these questions: Can we outperform biology? What can we learn from Nature for improving modern electronics?

Themis Prodromakis explains how to engage primary school students in nanotechnology — even outside the classroom.

Introducing the nanoworld

Our outreach team in the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group at the University of Southampton has attempted to break the problem down into its constituents, allowing us to bring the nanoscale world and its importance (see The Conversation, 22 March 2016; http://go.nature.com/2uq8J6u) to a level that is both entertaining and understandable even to primary school students. The main objective of our outreach activity is to pique their curiosity by taking them through a typical working pattern for designing, developing and testing a new device. To make this even more challenging, it all has to be delivered without requiring access to a highly controlled environment such as a cleanroom.

An article in New Scientist, written by Liesbeth Venema, explores a radical new computing paradigm in which hardware simultaneously stores and processes information – not unlike networks of neurons in the brain. The article features Themis’ work considering whether memristors could lead to machines that can learn entirely on their own. The article is entitled : "Brain box: Multitasking chips that can match the human mind. An electrical component once thought impossible is delivering machine minds that can think on their own".

Brain box: Multitasking chips that can match the human mind

SOMETHING is going on outside your window. Rough oblongs zoom past, one of which sidles along and stops, disgorging a series of small irregular shapes in many colours. High-pitched sounds drift up as they messily assemble into a row behind a taller shape.

SOMETHING is going on outside your window. Rough oblongs zoom past, one of which sidles along and stops, disgorging a series of small irregular shapes in many colours. High-pitched sounds drift up as they messily assemble into a row behind a taller shape.

Microseconds pass and all becomes clear: a group of schoolchildren has pulled up in a bus and lined up behind their teacher. Your brain has taken a chaos of sensory inputs and produced a lucid experience – as it does day in, day out, throughout your life.

If only computers could do the same. We may talk about artificial intelligence learning human smarts like driving cars or playing poker, but when it comes to quickly making sense of a huge, disordered set of information, we can’t build an AI that even comes close to our brains.

First demonstration of brain-inspired device to power artificial systems

New research, led by the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be used to power artificial systems that can mimic the human brain.

First demonstration of brain-inspired device to power artificial systems

New research, led by the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be used to power artificial systems that can mimic the human brain.

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) exhibit learning abilities and can perform tasks which are difficult for conventional computing systems, such as pattern recognition, on-line learning and classification. Practical ANN implementations are currently hampered by the lack of efficient hardware synapses; a key component that every ANN requires in large numbers.

In the study, published in Nature Communications, the Southampton research team experimentally demonstrated an ANN that used memristor synapses supporting sophisticated learning rules in order to carry out reversible learning of noisy input data.

Memristors are electrical components that limit or regulate the flow of electrical current in a circuit and can remember the amount of charge that was flowing through it and retain the data, even when the power is turned off.

Lead author Dr Alex Serb, from Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, said: “If we want to build artificial systems that can mimic the brain in function and power we need to use hundreds of billions, perhaps even trillions of artificial synapses, many of which must be able to implement learning rules of varying degrees of complexity. Whilst currently available electronic components can certainly be pieced together to create such synapses, the required power and area efficiency benchmarks will be extremely difficult to meet -if even possible at all- without designing new and bespoke 'synapse components'.

“Memristors offer a possible route towards that end by supporting many fundamental features of learning synapses (memory storage, on-line learning, computationally powerful learning rule implementation, two-terminal structure) in extremely compact volumes and at exceptionally low energy costs. If artificial brains are ever going to become reality, therefore, memristive synapses have to succeed.”

Acting like synapses in the brain, the metal-oxide memristor array was capable of learning and re-learning input patterns in an unsupervised manner within a probabilistic winner-take-all (WTA) network. This is extremely useful for enabling low-power embedded processors (needed for the Internet of Things) that can process in real-time big data without any prior knowledge of the data.

Co-author Professor Prodromakis, Reader in Nanoelectronics and EPSRC Fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, said: “The uptake of any new technology is typically hampered by the lack of practical demonstrators that showcase the technology’s benefits in practical applications. Our work establishes such a technological paradigm shift, proving that nanoscale memristors can indeed be used to formulate in-silico neural circuits for processing big-data in real-time; a key challenge of modern society.

“We have shown that such hardware platforms can independently adapt to its environment without any human intervention and are very resilient in processing even noisy data in real-time reliably. This new type of hardware could find a diverse range of applications in pervasive sensing technologies to fuel real-time monitoring in harsh or inaccessible environments; a highly desirable capability for enabling the Internet of Things vision.”

This interdisciplinary work was supported by a CHIST-ERA net award project and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It brought together engineers from the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group at the University of Southampton with theoretical computer scientists at the Graz University of Technology, using the state-of-art facilities of the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre.

The Prodromakis Group at the University of Southampton is acknowledged as world-leading in this field, collaborating among others with Leon Chua (a Diamond Jubilee Visiting Academic at the University of Southampton), who theoretically predicted the existence of memristors in 1971.

New research, led by the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be the ‘missing link’ in the development of implants that use electrical signals from the brain to help treat medical conditions.

‘Missing link’ found in the development of bioelectronic medicines

New research, led by the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be the ‘missing link’ in the development of implants that use electrical signals from the brain to help treat medical conditions.

Monitoring neuronal cell activity is fundamental to neuroscience and the development of neuroprosthetics – biomedically engineered devices that are driven by neural activity. However, a persistent problem is the device being able to process the neural data in real-time, which imposes restrictive requirements on bandwidth, energy and computation capacity.

In a new study, published in Nature Communications, the researchers showed that memristors could provide real-time processing of neuronal signals (spiking events) leading to efficient data compression and the potential to develop more precise and affordable neuroprosthetics and bioelectronic medicines.

Memristors are electrical components that limit or regulate the flow of electrical current in a circuit and can remember the amount of charge that was flowing through it and retain the data, even when the power is turned off.

Lead author Isha Gupta, Postgraduate Research Student at the University of Southampton, said: “Our work can significantly contribute towards further enhancing the understanding of neuroscience, developing neuroprosthetics and bio-electronic medicines by building tools essential for interpreting the big data in a more effective way.”

The research team developed a nanoscale Memristive Integrating Sensor (MIS) into which they fed a series of voltage-time samples, which replicated neuronal electrical activity.

Acting like synapses in the brain, the metal-oxide MIS was able to encode and compress (up to 200 times) neuronal spiking activity recorded by multi-electrode arrays. Besides addressing the bandwidth constraints, this approach was also very power efficient – the power needed per recording channel was up to 100 times less when compared to current best practice.

Co-author Dr Themis Prodromakis, Reader in Nanoelectronics and EPSRC Fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton said: “We are thrilled that we succeeded in demonstrating that these emerging nanoscale devices, despite being rather simple in architecture, possess ultra-rich dynamics that can be harnessed beyond the obvious memory applications to address the fundamental constraints in bandwidth and power that currently prohibit scaling neural interfaces beyond 1,000 recording channels.”

The Prodromakis Group at the University of Southampton is acknowledged as world-leading in this field, collaborating among others with Leon Chua (a Diamond Jubilee Visiting Academic at the University of Southampton), who theoretically predicted the existence of memristors in 1971.

This interdisciplinary work was supported by an FP7 project (the European Union's Research and Innovation funding) and brought together engineers from the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group at the University of Southampton with biologists from the University of Padova and the Max Planck Institute, Germany, using the state-of-art facilities of the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre.

The IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) is the world's premier networking forum of leading researchers in the highly active fields of theory, design and implementation of circuits and systems. At the symposium, Isha Gupta was named the winner of the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) best paper award. Isha’s paper was entitled ‘Practical Operation Considerations for Memristive Integrating Sensors’. Dr Prodromakis’ team also showcased their first commercial product, ArC One™, a versatile high performance testing platform for characterising ‘en masse’ novel technologies in a fast and automated fashion. In addition, Dr Alex Serb, Research Fellow in the Prodromakis group, was elected to serve as member on the Neural Systems & Applications and Sensory Systems Technical Committees of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.

International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 2016

The IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) is the world's premier networking forum of leading researchers in the highly active fields of theory, design and implementation of circuits and systems. At the symposium, Isha Gupta was named the winner of the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) best paper award. Isha’s paper was entitled ‘Practical Operation Considerations for Memristive Integrating Sensors’. Dr Prodromakis’ team also showcased their first commercial product, ArC One™, a versatile high performance testing platform for characterising ‘en masse’ novel technologies in a fast and automated fashion. In addition, Dr Alex Serb, Research Fellow in the Prodromakis group, was elected to serve as member on the Neural Systems & Applications and Sensory Systems Technical Committees of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.

The University of Southampton opened its doors on Saturday to thousands of people for its biggest outreach event of the year, Science and Engineering Festival 2016, part of British Science Week. Amongst the huge range of activities, tours and shows on offer was the opportunity to see inside the state-of-the-art Zepler Institute Cleanroom Complex, home to the best set of nanoelectronics and photonics fabrication capabilities in the UK.

Nanotechnology and photonics research inspires the public

The University of Southampton opened its doors on Saturday to thousands of people for its biggest outreach event of the year, Science and Engineering Festival 2016, part of British Science Week. Amongst the huge range of activities, tours and shows on offer was the opportunity to see inside the state-of-the-art Zepler Institute Cleanroom Complex, home to the best set of nanoelectronics and photonics fabrication capabilities in the UK.

Some 300 people visited the cleanrooms and were treated to tours from a team of Zepler Institute researchers, led by Dr James Gates, a senior research fellow in the Planar Optical Materials group. Visitors also had the opportunity to learn about cleanroom fabrication processes through assembling their own silicon chip key rings.

Younger children and families were attracted to a range of activities run by the Nano Outreach and Optoelectronics Research Centre’s Lightwave teams. Over 250 children participated in learning about nanofabrication, through dressing up in cleanroom ‘bunnysuits’ and making their own microfluidic jelly chips, and exploring the scientific principles of optics with hands-on experiments involving mirrors, prisms and even laser modulation.

‘Demonstrations of ray optics were particularly popular’ said Nathan Soper from the Lightwave team. ‘Over one hundred people went away with diffraction gratings produced to celebrate the centennial year of the Optical Society (OSA), which has a Student Chapter at the University. From the smiles on the children’s faces it’s fair to say the day was profitable for everyone involved.’

‘Days like the Science and Engineering Festival are vitally important for outreach. They enable the University to not only engage young minds but to inform parents of all the possibilities in their children’s future.

‘The day was a resounding success. Families were queuing out of the door, waiting for their chance to dress up like a cleanroom scientist - both children and parents alike! My highlight of the day was when a mother exclaimed her joy at seeing such a high number of women researchers running the event, working in engineering.’

Members of the public will soon have another opportunity to discover more about photonics and electronics research as Zepler Institute scientists head out into the city for the Pint of Science Festival. This annual event brings the latest scientific research to pubs, with venues across Southampton taking part from 23-25 May 2016.

The co-founders of ArC Instruments Alexander Serb and Radu Berdan, carried out switching of wire-bonded and packaged devices using our ArC beta prototype and our custom made software. The demostration was succesful with the majority of researchers expressing their interest towards our instrument. He were very happy to see that Prof Rainer Waser and Dr. Ilia Valov were interested to learn about the features and capabilities of ArC Beta.

The international workshop "Advances in ReRAM: Materials and Interfaces" was held at Minoa Palace Resort Hotel in Platanias-Chania, Crete, Greece on 11-16 October 2015.

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Crete 2015

Participation at G-ReRAM meeting, Chania, Greece, Oct. 2015

The workshop is focused on the role of the intefaces in nanoscale ReRAMs and on new approaches and materials, and how these can be facilitated through the modern nanotechnology. It gets together leading experts and aims to enlighten the physics and as well the electrochemical properties of alternative materials and interface modifications. Furthermore, the workshop targets to create new ideas for novel ReRAMs and build valuable future collaborations. Participants will further be invited to debate and interact mutually. Stimulated round table and panel discussions are envisioned to contribute to an enhanced interaction between physisits, chemists, material scientists and engineers.

The University of Southampton (Professor Prodromakis) has been awarded a multi-million grant from Lloyd’s Register Foundation to bring together some of the world’s brightest early career researchers to find new ways of using nanotechnologies to improve safety at sea, on land and in the air.

Multi-million pound project to use nanotechnology to improve safety

The University of Southampton has been awarded a multi-million grant from Lloyd’s Register Foundation to bring together some of the world’s brightest early career researchers to find new ways of using nanotechnologies to improve safety at sea, on land and in the air.

Dr Themis Prodromakis, a Reader within the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnologies Group at Southampton, is leading the £3m programme, which will receive match funding from partner organisations. He says: “Researchers are always looking for funding for high risk, high reward ideas. They want to collaborate with the best scientists and engineers in the world and gain access to state-of-art facilities. The Lloyd’s Register Foundation International COnsortium in Nanotechnologies (ICON) will assemble the world’s leading universities, research institutions and innovative companies to help them tackle many of today’s most challenging issues by recruiting talented PhD students from every continent.”

Applications will soon be invited from scientists and engineers keen to pioneer research across a range of industries. Nanotechnologies are already widely used, for example in smart phones, cameras and gadgets. Breakthroughs already being developed include cars, boats and planes built from lightweight materials stronger than steel with new functions such as self-cleaning and repairing; flexible textiles that can become rigid and shockproof to protect the wearer; sensors in hostile environments such as the deep ocean and space; tiny implants for real-time monitoring to aid diagnoses for doctors; and smart devices that harvest energy from their environment.

ICON will support more than 50 PhD students to undertake research at leading global universities, aided by matched funding. They will work together with partners from industry on interdisciplinary projects and access world-leading facilities, such as the £120m Southampton Nanofabrication Centre. The doctoral researchers will meet every year to present their findings and share ideas and concepts, becoming part of a global doctoral cohort addressing the Foundation’s safety mission.

Professor Richard Clegg, Managing Director of Lloyd’s Register Foundation said: “We are pleased to support the University of Southampton in developing this global cohort of scientists. Their research will develop applications to further the Foundation’s safety goals whilst also providing training and building technical capacity in support of our educational mission. The doctoral students joining this consortium will gain an understanding of how their research can benefit society whilst developing international research networks at an early stage in their careers.”

“The support of Lloyd’s Register Foundation is key to our mission,” adds Dr Prodromakis. “Lloyd’s Register itself is well-known for promoting safety worldwide for more than 250 years. Its Global Technology Centre is now based in Southampton and its Foundation has become a catalyst to support research, training and education for the benefit of society. We are delighted to work alongside them.”

In-situ HAXPES investigation of TiO2 and Al2O3-TiO2 based RRAM devices

Our team performed a HAXPES experiment at Galaxies beamline, Soleil synchrotron, France, from the 2nd to the 7th September 2015. In-situ electroforming of Pt/TiO2/Pt based resistive system was achieved in the HAXPES vacuum chamber with simultaneous recording of Ti 2p, O 1s and Pt 4p3/2 spectra. Al-doped TiO2 based RRAM devices switched in different electrical states were also studied.

In-situ HAXPES investigation of TiO2 and Al2O3-TiO2 based RRAM devices

Our team performed a HAXPES experiment at Galaxies beamline, Soleil synchrotron, France, fromthe 2nd to the 7th September 2015. In-situ electroforming of Pt/TiO2/Pt based resistive systems was achived in the HAXPES vacuum chamber with simultaneous recording of Ti 2p, O 1s and P 4p3/2 spectra. Al-doped TiO2 based RRAM devices switched in different electrical states were also studied.

At the beginning of December our team performed a HAXPES experiment at the I09 beamline at the Diamond Light Source, Didcot, UK. The experiment was conducted in collaboration with Francesco Borgatti (CNR-ISMN, Bologna), Giancarlo Panaccione (CNR-IOM, Trieste) and the I09 team including Tien-Lin Lee and Christoph Schlueter.

At the beginning of December our team performed a HAXPES experiment at the Diamond Light Source, UK. The experiment was performed at the I09 beamline with the goal to understand switching-induced redox processes occurring at the metal oxide boundary of TiO2 systems. The aim was to use hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HAXPES) to detect chemical changes at the Pt/TiO2 interfaces of Pt/TiO2/Pt vertical heterostructures. Core level spectra were collected to provide an insight into the chemical states of the active TiO2 layer for devices set in different resistive states by an electric field.

Visit of the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Minister of State for Universities & Science

Greg Clark, Minister for Universities, Science and Cities visited the University of Southampton on 20th November with the CEOs of EPSRC, BBSRC and MRC. Dr Prodromakis had the chance to explain his team's research and particularly his EPSRC Fellowship outcomes.

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Greg Clark

Visit of the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Minister of State for Universities & Science

Greg Clark, Minister for Universities, Science and Cities visited the University of Southampton on 20th November with the CEOs of EPSRC, BBSRC and MRC. Dr Prodromakis had the chance to explain his team's research and particularly his EPSRC Fellowship outcomes.

Dr Prodromakis has been appointed as Visiting Professor in NUDT, China

In recognition of Professor Prodromakis contributions in the field of memristors, the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has invited him as a visiting professor in the newly established Centre for Quantum Information and Interdisciplinary Science and Technology.

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Dr Prodromakis has been appointed as Visiting Professor in NUDT, China

The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) has invited Professor Prodromakis to serve as a visiting professor in the newly established Centre for Quantum Information and Interdisciplinary Science and Technology. This award will strengthen the existing synergies between the University of Southampton and NUDT via joint PhD placements and comes as a recognition of Dr Prodromakis' contributions in the field of memristors. file:///Users/user/Dropbox/NUDT/Photos/2014-10-21%2017.03.17.jpg

At the beginning of October our team performed a synchrotron experiment at the Italian synchrotron Elettra in Trieste.
The experiment was conducted in collaboration with Francesco Borgatti (SMM-CNR Bologna) and the APE team including Giancarlo Panaccione, Piero Torelli and Benoit Gobaut.

In-Operando Experiment at Elettra, Italy

At the beginning of October our team performed a synchrotron experiment at the Italian synchrotron Eletrra in Trieste. The experiment was performed at the APE beamline with the goal to perform in-operando chracterization of single-memristive device electrically connected to external supplies for in-situ biasing. The aim was to use core level X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy to detect chemical changes in the Pt/TiO2/Pt vertical heterostructures, in order to elucidate switching-induced redox-processes occuring at the metal-oxide boundary.

The experiment was conducted in collaboration with Francesco Borgatti (SMM-CNR Bologna) and the APE team including Giancarlo Panaccione, Piero Torelli and Benoit Gobaut.

The British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEA) celebrate British innovation and technology with particular stress on fast and efficient transfer of ideas from lab to market. Companies, large and small, participate in this event and feature their successes

BEEA, London

Alexander Serb was sent to the BEEA event as a representative of the academia. The event was a great opportunity to bring academia and industry in contact with each other and provided impetus in our group towards the goal of inventing and promoting commercially viable technology.

Our team have performed a Near-Edge X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure Transmission X-Ray Microscopy (NEXAFS-TXM) experiment at the beamline U41- FSGM at the Bessy II electron storage ring operated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). The experiment was performed with the aim to obtain specific information on the variation of titanium oxidation state and coordination geometry across the film as a consequence of switching.

ISCAS 2014 took place in Melborune, Australia. The topic of this year’s, Circuits & Systems Society Forum on Emerging & Selected Topics (CASFEST), was ‘Memristive devices, circuits, systems & applications,’ which brought together world leading experts in this field including contributions from the industry.

Conference News - ISCAS 2014, Melbourne, Australia

The topic of this year’s, Circuits & Systems Society Forum on Emerging & Selected Topics (CASFEST), was ‘Memristive devices, circuits, systems & applications,’ which brought together world leading experts in this field including contributions from the industry.CAS-FEST extensively covered the memristors field from the existing knowledge to future challenges, and promising dimensions for research. Our group contributed heavily to this symposium starting from the involvement of Dr. Themis Prodromakis as one of the CAS-FEST organizers, who also gave a tutorial on the ‘Practical Applications of Solid State Memristors.’ Dr. Alexantrou Serb, a Research Fellow within our group, gave an interesting talk on the ‘Memristors as a synapse emulators in the context of event-based Computation.’ Furthermore, Radu Berdan, a second year PhD student, highlighted his work by giving two talks on ‘Qualitative Spice Modelling of Volatile TiO2 Memristors’ and ‘Applications of TiO2 Memristors in Tunable filters.’ The group further presented ‘A versatile, Low-cost Platform for testing Large ReRAM Cross Bar Arrays’ and ‘Origin of Stochastic Resistive Switching in devices with phenomenological identical initial states’ in the form of posters. Our group successfully demonstrated a live demo during which ISCAS delegates could select and programme real solid-state TiO2 memristors.

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship to be filled by September 2014. This scholarship will fund students for their tuition fees, a bursary to cover living expenses (£13,726 per year) and a Research Training Support Grant for research consumables and conference attendance.

We are hiring!

PhD Studentship in Functional Oxide Thin Films

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship to commence by September 2014. This studentship includes funding for tuition fees, a stipend of £13,726 per year to cover living expenses, and a Research Training Support Grant for research consumables and conference attendance. The role will be based in the Nano Group within the Electronics and Computer Science Department and will use state-of-the-art facilities at the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre (SNC). SNC is one of the leading academic cleanrooms in Europe, facilitating a uniquely broad range of technologies by combining traditional and novel top down fabrication with state-of-the-art bottom up fabrication.

The outline of the project is presented below:

Metal oxide thin films are the active part of emerging nanodevices which are regarded as a promising solution for establishing next-generation memory elements. Research has increasingly focused on the fundamental physico-chemical processes within the oxide as well as the impact of thin film growth and post-growth treatments on the electronic and structural properties. The studentship will be primarily experimentally based, including both thin film deposition and characterization methods.

Our long-term goal is to investigate the performance, reliability, and the manufacturability of ultra-thin functional oxide layers, their application in high-density low-power memory devices and integration with conventional industrial semiconductor technologies.

Applicants should have, or expect, a first class honours, or equivalent, Master’s level degree in Chemistry, Physics, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or a closely related subject, with demonstratable knowledge of solid state chemistry/physics. The successful candidate will be expected to have an interest in metal oxides and nanofabrication. This studentship is available to Home/EU applicants for a period of 3 years. The Nano Group will provide research experience in one of its programs, training, laboratory facilities and access to its seminar and lectures. Students would also be encouraged to attend three major conferences during their period of study and would have access to all university facilities for wider study, including the libraries, and recreation.

To apply please send a CV, relevant publications, the names of two referees and a covering letter explaining your current interests and relevant background to Mrs Glenys Howe (gch@ecs.soton.ac.uk). Please note that the successful candidate will be asked to submit a PhD research application to Registry to ensure they have met all necessary admissions criteria. More information on the Nano Group and the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre can be accessed at:

ICT COST Action (ICT1401) on Memristors - Devices, Circuits, Models and Appls. This COST Action will facilitate European cooperative interdisciplinary activities in the emerging field of memristors. Dr Prodromakis was nominated as UK's Representative to the action's Management Committee.

The invention of the “transfer resistor”, or “transistor” as it is know today, is considered to be the greatest invention of the 20th century, as it forms the basis of all electronic systems. The next technological revolution will come through self-organizing and self-programming circuits and systems, which are similar to biological brains in that they can learn to perform tasks.

The recently rediscovered Memristor offers a computational substrate with plasticity, in which adaptive circuits can be efficiently implemented. This COST action is aimed at bringing together researchers of different backgrounds to work in unison so as to overcome multidisciplinary barriers in the area of memristors. Bringing together device designers, device modelers, circuit theorists, analogue and digital designers, neuromorphic engineers and computation scientists will enable the defragmentation of current research efforts and is likely the to bring then next technological revolution. The creation of the hardware basis for future self-organizing/self-programming systems will really open up a wide range of application areas and new industries, e.g. humanoid robots to look after the elderly, self-driven vehicles etc.

Dr Prodromakis was nominated as UK's Representative to the action's Management Committee.

Daniela Carta and Anna Regoutz will perform an X-Ray Absorption experiment at beamline I18 Diamond synchrotron, UK on TiO2-based memristor devices. EXAFS and XANES measurements at the Ti K-edge will give an indication of how the TiO2 active layer changes in consequence of the switching.

Our team members will take part in a synchrotron experiment at the Italian synchrotron Elettra in Triest at the beginning of April. The aim is to use X-ray absorption (XAS) to detect chemical changes at the Pt/TiO2 interfaces in memristive devices in order to elucidate switching-induced redox-processes at these boundaries.

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TiO2

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XAS experiment at Elettra

Our team members will take part in a synchrotron experiment at the Italian synchrotron Elettra in Triest at the beginning of April. The aim is to use X-ray absorption (XAS) to detect chemical changes at the Pt/TiO2 interfaces in memristive devices in order to elucidate switching-induced redox-processes at these boundaries. We will investigate thin film devices in different resistive states induced by an electric field and we expect that the analysis of XAS spectra will carry information about the corresponding change in the electronic properties.

The experiment will take place at the APE beamline at Elettra in an attempt to establish a setup for the in-operando measurement of memristive devices. We are working closely together with the APE beam line scientists Dr Giancarlo Panaccione and Dr Piero Torelli, and Dr Francesco from the Institute for Nanostructured Materials CNR Bologna.

In this talk Dr Prodromakis will present the functional properties of memristors, an emerging nanoscale memory technology. He will also discuss the physical switching mechanisms and how these unreliable mechanisms can be reliably exploited in practical applications, particularly in analogue IC design and neuromorphic systems.

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nanoelectronics

memristors

unreliable

Reliably Unreliable Nanoelectronics

Seminar at the Physics and Maths Department, University of Hull UK

Large attention has recently been given to a novel technology named memristor, for having the potential of becoming the new electronic device standard. Memristors are dynamic nanoscale electron devices that are nowadays regarded as a promising solution for establishing next-generation memory, owing to their potential of achieving “more” (functionality/information storage) for “less” (power and physical dimensions). Most interestingly, it has been envisioned that mimicking the functionality of biological brain systems will fulfil its potential. During this lecture, I will present how memristors can be exploited in practical applications, with particular emphasis in the areas of analogue IC design and neuromorphic systems.